Interview with Alexander Megos after the first ascent of Perfecto Mundo

Alexander Megos strikes again ! On Wednesday 9 May he clipped the chains of Perfecto Mundo. A former Chris Sharma project at Margalef, graded a staggering 9b+ by the 24-year-old German climber. Alexander Megos is the second person, behind Adam Ondra, to author 5.15c (La Dura Dura, Change, Vasil Vasil). And the third person in the world to climb this grade, following Chris Sharma.

Alexander Megos, first of all can you provide some background information about the route ?

Chris Sharma bolted it about nine years ago through the really steep section that contains a host of other really hard climbs. At the time he tried it a bit and also got pretty close to the send. When Adam Ondra started showing interest in his other project, La Dura Dura at Oliana, Chris shifted his focus.

And they started to work that route together since its a lot easier to try something at your limit with someone else. They both then managed to send Dura Dura and even though Chris wanted to return to Perfecto Mundo, other things always got in his way.

It seems as if interest in this route was rekindled only recently. Stefano Ghisolfi for example started trying it immediately after sending La Capella in January.

Well we’d thought about the route for the last few years and Stefano and I had talked about attempting it together a while ago. When he tried it for two days in January it was simply far too cold.We’d planned to try it together this spring, but when he came in March I was away in the States. I arrived here on the 15th of April specifically with this route in mind, he had other commitments and arrived about 10 days later.

You mentioned that it’s easier to try something hard together

Yes, of course. It’s far more motivating. You push each other and give everything. I can really understand why Chris abandoned the project at the time, it’s really hard to continually try something on your own. It’s just not as exciting as trying something with others.

Is there competition between you?

It’s not a competition. But as I said, you’re really motivated to give your absolute best. And it’s also so much more fun. I had a blast with Chris and Stefano. And of course you’re also far more efficient. When you try something on your own that’s at your absolute limit, you never really know if the sequence you’re trying is the best. You don’t know how hard something really is. So trying Perfecto Mundo with Chris and Stefano was great. We all had our difficulties at different sections of the route. And it was cool to understand why and see how we could each improve.